My Dear Stranger by Sarah Ann Walker Read Free Book Online Page A

but I feel very much removed from them. 
      This is a very strange feeling for me, but eventually I light another cigarette and settle in for more.  It’s time.
     
     
    My Dear Stranger VI
    Last night as I screamed within my nightmare panic, your haunting image increased my suffering.  I wanted you to be with me.  I needed you to be here for me.
I have moved again.  Unsteady in my homes and unlikely to stay for long, I have moved once again.  Yet, with the move before you had found me.  Creeping quietly into my room, gently into my new bed, you finally came home to me.

When you found me you smiled at my fear.  When you found me we held each other in my new residence.  Should I again fear your absence with this move?  Should I question your ability to find me?  Should I question your love?  Should I cry as I wait for your arrival?
I want to smile at my insecurity but I can't.  Where are you?  Where have you been for so long?  What has taken you so long to find me?

Together, we have never been so absent from each other.  Love used to hold us so close.  Each challenge and each brutality strengthened our love.  You used to cherish each moment we spent together.  You adored my neurotic insecurity.  You comforted my pain.  You caressed my untouched body.  You pushed my inability to express myself.  You loved my body.  You loved my breath.  You loved me, completely.

My tears are again streaming.  My mind is again screaming.  Where are you?  Why have you not come to me?
Time endures.  Days are blurred.  Your absence depresses.  My life is pain filled and my heart suppresses… this agony.

I will attempt sleep once more, though I know this sleep can only be torture and pain without you here as you haven't been for more than half a year.
I love you and I miss you, my stranger, my dear. 
    November 1998
18 years old
    *****
      I had started college by that time and I had moved out of my parents’ home.  I was alone, officially.  I was now completely and totally alone in my own home.
      It’s funny to me now how I thought of that time as being truly alone, but in reality I had always been alone.  I had an inde pendence my friends didn’t have, but envied.  I had an independence from the emotional attachments some friends needed with their parents.  I didn’t need friends or family, and I never needed attachments… except to Him.
      And I remember that apartment so well.  I loved it.  It was the perfect apartment for someone like me.  It was in a small building, but a four-square type building with a landing in between each neighbor therefore we were only beside one other neighbor, allowing for a certain amount of privacy that I loved.  And with very high ceilings and thick walls, I never heard the neighbors above or below. 
      It truly was a wonderful apartment for someone like me who wanted her privacy desperately.
      So I was officially alone, but my friends from high school still visited and partied with me.  They came over.  They drank with me and danced and sang.  We were young enough to still feel like kids partying like adults.  We felt young and free and we loved the fact that one of us had an adult apartment t o party in.  So we partied.  And while I partied I faked being a typical 18 year old very well.
      I drank with my friends, and I acted like any other 18 year old girl on the surface.  I was normal.  I went to college and I came home and crashed in the afternoon to prepare myself for all my friends arriving at my door by 8:30 to start pre-drinking before we hit the bars we loved with the fake ID’s we cherished.
      And overall I was truly okay.  I was lonely at night, waiting on His visits, but the loneliness of the days were filled superficially with being 18, hanging out with girlfriends, drinking in the evenings, and having a certain amount of fun to occupy my time. 
      But my nightly ritual continued.  I showered and shaved, while I waited